Hohoholy it's Week 18 — Called to Serve in Cuiaba

Hello people!

I literally freaking hate Bob’s now. I hesitate to say that I will never eat there again because it gets pretty desperate out here in Primavera dude, but I literally don’t think I’ll ever eat there again. On Monday my organs got absolutely demoralized by all of the freaking trash food they serve. I literally woke up like 74 times Monday night and hurled my intestines out hahaha. WHAT A FREAKING WAY TO START MY WEEK.

But anyway as I sit here listening to the Josh Groban CD my mother sent me, I sit pondering on the lovely week that truly unfolded after the inconvienent events that occured the night of Monday. On Thursday we boogied over to Cuiabá for the Christmas conference and I saw my good friend Elder Fartinez hahaha. This conference was way too freaking rad tho I never thought I could get so freaking warm and exited about seeing other missionaries hahaha. But on Friday in the morning before we started the conference we went to an old folks home and hungout with some FREAKING old people. I’m talkin like ancient, and every single one of them was cuter than a button. I had a super special experience with this dude who I literally love. His name was super long and complicated but were just gonna call him L.

Alright so how I found my homie L. I was sittin there singing some hyms with a group of dudes and I got this feeling like “get up and walk around aimlessly” hahah and like I knew it was from the Spirit so i just went for it. I got up and started walking around and then I saw my homie L. He was chillin in his wheelchair alone and the Spirit literally blasted me and was like go sit by that old man, so I grabbed a chair and just sat by him alone. The second I sat down I realized he was super blind, so I just started talking to him and I described my face to him for some reason haha and then I just asked him about his life and then I felt like I should sing for him hahah so I flipped open my hymn book to Silent Night and was like "do you think I can sing a song for you” and he was like man I would love that more than anything, so I started singing for this dude, but dude I started singing and I kid you not I got half way through the first verse and started to feel the tears comin and I was like alright hahah, and then the second I hit the next verse I was in a full sob. I kept trying to sing for him and I had all these tears running down my face and the Spirit was just insane. L just sat there holding my hand listening. In that moment I felt happier than I have felt in a long long long time. I felt the pure and everlasting love for this dude. I kid you not I felt as if Christ was truly loving L. through my tear filled words. I felt as if nothing on this whole entire earth mattered more to me than that old blind dude in a wheelchair in Cuiabá Brasil. I have never felt such a pure and intensly concentrated love of our Lord and Savior for any human being in my life. After I finished the song he looked up at me and looked me straight in the watery eyes and just goes “thank you” in a super calm and peaceful voice. Wow. I have some gnarly chills right now. Gosh I miss L. In that moment I felt a love for someone that I didn’t even know was possible of feeling. I gained the gnarliest testimony of loving service. Through giving I recieved 34 times more than I could have ever dreamed of getting. Holy moses

After that we took these buses back to the conference but these buses were just SO grizzly haha. The exhaust didn’t leave the back of the bus properly so we all just got freaking RKO~d by so many different fumes and when we finally got to conference I was on a different level haha. But President Granja gave the nicest talk ever. He talked about love for like an hour and a half and he brought up something that scrambled my eggs. He goes "alright, so Jesus Christ, he literally came here to this earth and every single thing he did was through the power of love. He took upon every single pain and sin of ours because HE LOVES US" and I just sat there and tried to register what he just said. I’d heard that phrase like 65 times in my life already, but this 66th time it really hit me. I realized in that moment that literally love itself was the driving force to complete the most painful and powerful thing ever completed. Through love, the most simply complex thing on this planet, Jesus Christ himself completed the Atonement. Without that insanely deep and indescribable love, he would not have been able to complete the task at hand. He did it out of LOVE. Literally it sounds so cliché but love is the most powerful thing in existense. Love is why we wake up, or why we brush our teeth or why we make cookies for someone. Love is literally freaking everything. If we could only start to comprehend the power that loving people truly has, imagine how our world would be changed. Love opens the door to literally do freaking everything.

I wanna toss a quick shout out to first, my mother. Mom I love you more than anyone on the planet. . . and dad too. Secondly I wanna toss some gratitude out to every single one of you that wrote me handwritten letters for Christmas. I wish I had more time to write every single one of you individually. I love you guys more than my English will permit me to show at the moment haha. And thirdly to all my homies serving, or at home, doing the little things every day to become closer to Christ. I love every one of you.

Have the best Christmas ever tomorrow dudes. Do something to make this a Christmas you’ll never forget <3

ps. I tell everyone here than I am President Trump’s nephew and they lose their biscuits every time hahah. Nothing better than joshin some good old Brasileiros.

I love you

After 2 months of just me and Kevin here in PVA, another companionship finally moved into our apartment yeww (Elder Nye & Elder Ribiero)

A Lego my mom sent me (: (Chewbacca & the Millennium Falcon)